50 Horn Duets by Charles Türrschmiedt

(1753 - 1797)

This is a collection of duets originally published in 1795. There is not much information on Charles Türrschmiedt but he probably was a natural horn player and part of a musical family from Berlin, Germany. He may also have toured Europe with another horn player, Johann Palsa, playing duets in the late 18th century. Most of the duets appear to be original works by Türrschmiedt while several are based on themes by other composers. Three themes are attributed to Palsa and there are other themes from Mozart, Rousseau, Zink, Dimmler, Aspelmeyr, and Reichardt.

These duets were all written for the natural horn. This would explain why the first horn parts go so high. A high "C" above the F-horn staff occurs in a few of the duets. Some go to a high "E" and one reaches a high "F". In the days of the natural horn, players usually specialized as "high horn" or "low horn". This referred to range of crooks they were comfortable with. The "high horn" player used a smaller diameter mouthpiece as well. I have provided some of the duets with an optional transposed version as well as the original notation. This makes them more playable on the modern double horn. This publication is in two books, a first horn book and a second horn/euphonium book. The euphonium half of the book is for euphonium bass clef.

Listen to the Duets

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